Semmelweis Clean Hands Award

Deserved Recognition For Peter Duesberg & Celia Farber

In 1847, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis pioneered the prevention of disease transmission by enforcing the washing hands with chlorinated lime, which reduced patient mortality rate due to Puerperal Fever from 12% to almost zero. Nevertheless, his hypothesis was rejected and ridiculed by the medical authorities of the time, and when he refused to compromise his beliefs, the hospital that employed him was pressured into terminating his clinical privileges. Semmelweis was hounded, persecuted, and finally comitted to an insane asylum, where he was beaten to death by guards.

Today, the Semmelweis Society International annually recognizes individual Healthcare Providers, Researchers, and associated personnel, who have challenged the status quo and drawn attention to controversial issues regarding patient health and safety, frequently enduring threats, vilification, retaliation, and financial ruin. The 2008 "Clean Hands Award" has been given to molecular biologist Peter Duesberg and investigative journalist Celia Farber for their work on questioning the official theory of AIDS.

From the Society's Press Release:

Members of Semmelweis Society International represent thousands of years of medical expertise and practice. They understand the power of competing ideas and the importance of open and rigorous debate. In the case of HIV/AIDS, the debate has been inexplicably muted by individuals and agencies that have handsomely profited by the hysteria related to HIV/AIDS. History reminds us that solid ideas are easily defended, while lesser theories can only be defended with fear, intimidation, and ridicule.

The overt Hysteria deployed against those who are simply proposing the clinical and fully scientific review of new ideas should alarm public servants and elected officials who are responsible for supporting the First Amendment right for rational discourse. American taxpayers have not been told the whole truth about the still-unidentified HIV virus, and its arguable relationship to the disease of AIDS, while ignoring the known toxicity of the drugs currently used to fight AIDS.

Semmelweis Society International does not present the Clean Hands Award lightly. [I]t is hard to imagine anyone more deserving than Professor Peter Duesberg and investigative reporter Celia Farber. These two have withstood a vicious and ongoing multiyear multicontinent personal onslaught against their livelihoods, their character, and their families that is unparalleled since the Spanish Inquisition. Their sole "crime" is to ask if there has not been a colossal error in our thinking to date. The simple facts are that nobody has ever been cured of AIDS. No Vaccine has ever been developed. Something is wrong here.